


How Much of It You’ve Got Left

by engagemythrusters



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Babies, COE Fix-it, Domestic Fluff, Hospitals, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engagemythrusters/pseuds/engagemythrusters
Summary: Sometimes, life could seem rather strange when comparing two vastly different situations.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 72
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020





	How Much of It You’ve Got Left

**Author's Note:**

> God, titling and summarising are absolute bitches...

“Stop playing with that,” Jack chided.

Ianto glared at him.

“I’m not,” Ianto said, though his fingers still plucked at the adhesive for his IV.

Jack shook his head and lounged back in his chair. He hated hospitals and their crappy furniture and horrible smells and the too-bright lights and literally everything else about them, but he was starting to get used to them. Unfortunately.

“They’re going to have to reinsert it if you tear that out,” Jack said after a few minutes of silence.

Ianto glared again, but his hand finally left his other arm alone. He shifted in his pillows and Jack watched him carefully, wary of any wrong move. But Ianto didn’t seem to have the energy to fidget with anything else, because he started to doze not long after, so Jack relaxed. Just a little.

Jack didn’t doze himself, but he got somewhat lost in his own head before the knock on the door came, and he jumped slightly and waited for the nurse to come in. Usually they came in right as they knocked, but this one didn’t seem to want to, because they knocked again. Jack stood, confused, and went to open the door.

It was not a nurse.

“Hi, Uncle Jack,” Anwen said brightly.

“What are you doing here?” Jack asked as he stepped aside to let Sam wheel her through the door.

“I have a delivery,” she said. Then she grinned and peered back up at Sam. “Well, no, I’ve done the delivery already, haven’t I?”

Sam nodded in response to her query, face impassive as they closed the door behind them. Anwen beamed at them with radiance for a moment, then turned back to Jack.

“Then it seems I have a _package_ , then,” she said.

She held up the bundle in her arms.

“It’s not a package,” Sam said when Jack’s eyes went wide. “It’s actually a baby.”

“I can see that,” Jack said. “Can I—”

“’Course,” Anwen said.

Jack took the baby from her arms, smiling down at it.

“Hello, sunshine,” Jack said, warmth filling his chest. “You’re a very beautiful baby.”

“Should hope so. Took twenty hours to come out, that one,” Anwen said.

“And you still look radiant,” Jack told her.

“Flatterer.”

“Always,” Jack said, awkwardly bending down to plant a kiss in her hair. He stood up, making sure the baby was secure in his hold, then frowned down at her. “Seriously, why are you here?”

“Thought I’d make a special visit,” Anwen said. “’s a bit weird, being in two different wards of the same hospital.”

“Weird” wasn’t exactly the word Jack would use. “Depressing” and “concerning” were closer to what he’d call it.

He mentally shook himself and looked down at the baby. Well. It was certainly pale, that was for sure. Definitely Sam’s Altairian genes at play. Jack hoped a little more of those genes would show up. Altairians were a striking species, with long, lithe bodies and goldenrod eyes. Close enough to humans to fit in, but notable enough to gain one or two odd looks in a pub.

Jack covertly glanced over to Sam. Hm… Yes, if the baby was a mix of Anwen and Sam, then it was sure to be the most beautiful creature this side of Sagittarius A*. Jack smiled at that thought, brushing a finger down the baby’s cheek.

“Someone’s a sleeping beauty,” he said.

“That makes two of them,” Anwen said.

Jack looked up and over to Ianto, still snoozing in bed.

“I suppose we came at a bad time,” she said.

“No, no,” Jack said. “It’s fine. We can wake him up.”

He walked carefully to Ianto’s bed, trying not to jostle the baby too much, then gently placed a hand on Ianto’s silvering head.

“Ianto,” Jack said softly.

“Hmm,” Ianto mumbled.

He blinked his eyes open, blearily squinting at Jack.

“We have guests,” Jack told him.

He frowned and glanced around the room until his expression still dazed until it landed on Anwen and Sam. Anwen gave him a wave. Sam stood, as per usual, awkwardly behind her.

Ianto looked back at Jack, frown deepening in confusion. His gaze then landed on the baby, and he tried to sit up, suddenly alert.

The hand Jack had on Ianto’s head went to his chest, stopping him from overexerting himself. Ianto relaxed back into the bed, but only slightly.

“You had the baby,” Ianto stated, turning back to Anwen.

“I did,” she said, grinning. “Morning, Uncle Ianto.”

“Gwen didn’t tell us you were having the baby,” Ianto accused.

“Oh, Mum thought you had enough to worry about,” Anwen said.

Ianto hmphed, but Jack figured Gwen may have had a small point. Ianto had consumed the whole of Jack’s brain since the moment he’d been admitted to the hospital last night. Adding onto that would’ve been a nightmare.

But now Ianto could breathe easier and the baby had been born. No need to worry about either thing. (Well… Jack figured he’d be worrying about this bout of pneumonia until the next inevitable one, but that was another thing entirely.)

Ianto’s hands reached out for the sleeping baby. Jack almost passed it over, but then thought better of it. Instead, he sat himself down on the bed next to Ianto, being careful of the oxygen tube and IV line, and offered Ianto the baby. Ianto efficiently slipped it into his hold, and Jack circled his arms around Ianto, acting as support. Ianto shot him a look that clearly stated, _“I can do it myself, Jack,”_ but Jack ignored him, smoothing his hands over Ianto’s.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Sam asked cautiously.

“It’s fine,” Ianto said, looking down at the baby in his arms.

“But—”

“I can’t pass anything on,” Ianto said. “It’s just my own shit lungs.”

Jack closed his eyes and kissed Ianto’s soft, silvering hair.

“What’s the name?” Ianto asked.

“Bronwyn,” Anwen said.

Jack looked down at the small, round, cherubim face of the baby. Bronwyn. It fit, Jack thought.

“Bronwyn,” Ianto repeated under his breath, nodding.

He moved a hand to adjust the tiny little hat on the baby’s head, and Jack supported Ianto’s arms more. Despite what Ianto might believe, neither he nor his strength currently ran at standard capacity. He was tired and a bit unsteady, and he had every reason to be.

Jack’s fingers laced between Ianto’s, feeling the reassuring _clack_ of their rings pressing together.

“Mum didn’t like the name,” Anwen said. “Well, she pretended to, but she got that face where…”

Anwen’s expression twisted into an exact replica of her mother’s forced oh-that’s- _lovely_ smile. Jack held in a laugh. Gwen would kill him if she knew he was laughing at her behind her back.

“She’s lovely,” Ianto said, still gazing down at the baby.

Jack studied the baby once more.

He remembered when Anwen was this small. That had been so long ago… and yet it felt like so little had changed. Ianto had been in much the same condition as now, though he’d been housebound that time until he could fully recover from the damage the 456’s virus had done to his lungs.

In his long life as a Torchwood employee, Ianto had faced many life-altering events, but none had come so close nor hit as hard as the one in Thames House, the effects of which rattled their lives to this day. Jack wished it had never happened, wished he’d never taken Ianto in that room with him, but there was no changing that. What was, was.

But Jack could remember that first time Gwen had brought Anwen over, and the two of them had held her and _ooh-ed_ and _aah-ed_ over her, and Jack had watched Ianto diligently out of the corner of his eye the entire time, just in case. Ianto had been just fine, as Jack figured he would be now, but that inexorable worry clung tighter than a Rigelan limpet.

“She looks like you,” Jack told Anwen.

Anwen’s eyebrows raised. “Mum says you said that about me and her.”

“Spatial genetic multiplicity,” Jack said.

“I still haven’t a clue what that means.”

Neither did Jack, but if it was what the Doctor had called it, then… that must be it.

“Very pale, though,” Ianto said, eyeing Sam.

“It’s a dominant gene.”

“Hmm.” Ianto’s fingers fiddled with the tiny hat some more.

Jack found himself bearing more and more of little Bronwyn’s weight as time went on. He observed Ianto for a moment, trying to gauge his exhaustion. Ianto was good at hiding it, but after almost thirty years, Jack had developed a good eye for spotting the subtle signs. And right now, all those signs seeped through, slowly becoming more apparent.

He sent Anwen a secret look. She frowned at him. She wasn’t as good as her mother at reading Jack’s looks. But then he gave the smallest incline of his head to Ianto, and recognition dawned on her face.

“We’d best be getting back,” she said. “I suspect Mum and Dad will be coming back to visit again in a bit.”

“Oh,” Ianto said.

He let Jack take Bronwyn from him, but Jack had to glare him back into the bed when he tried to sit up. He rolled his eyes, though sank into the pillows again. Jack returned the baby to her mother, and the two families said their goodbyes.

Jack closed the door behind Anwen and Sam and Baby Bronwyn as Sam rolled the other two back to the maternity ward. He yawned. Jesus, even if Ianto wasn’t tired, he sure was. He walked back to the bed and sat on it, unlacing his boots and kicking them aside. Ianto, well versed in Jack’s hospital-bed-hogging, had already moved over to give him some space to lay down beside him. They didn’t curl in on each other immediately like they usually did; Ianto needed space to breathe.

Not two minutes passed before Ianto said, “What?”

Jack pulled back and sat up slightly, frowning down at Ianto.

“You’re thinking,” he grouched. “And it’s very distracting.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I’ll think more privately,” Jack retorted.

“What is it?” Ianto asked, ignoring the barb.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “Get some rest.”

“When you tell me what’s wrong.”

Jack threw him an exasperated look, but he obliged. “Fine. I was just thinking… it feels like yesterday.”

“What does?” Ianto asked.

“Anwen.” Jack gestured towards the door. “She was just a baby. I was just holding her in my arms, not so long ago. And yet…”

“It was forever ago,” Ianto said, catching on.

Jack nodded. “Yeah.”

“Everything changes.”

“Yeah.”

“You have to be ready.”

Jack sighed. “Suppose.”

Ianto gave him a long look, solemn and sober. Jack aimed for a smile and missed, returning the look with an almost grimace instead. With a sigh, Ianto placed a hand on Jack’s cheek.

“I’ll be here for the next few changes,” he promised.

Jack took the hand on his cheek into his own hands and kissed it. Ianto gave him a soft smile, and this time, Jack found himself able to return it.

“Get some sleep,” Jack said.

“Only if you stop thinking so loud now,” Ianto said.

“Well, if you stop talking, I’ll stop thinking.”

Ianto rolled his eyes.

“Close them,” Jack ordered.

He rolled them again, and then, with great show, closed them for Jack’s benefit. Jack smiled to himself, put his head on the pillow next to Ianto’s, and closed his own eyes, too. His worries about the future could wait until later.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't exactly know what this is, I just needed to get a bingo for this fest. It turned out very differently than I'd expected it to when I'd started it. Hopefully you all still like it anyway!  
> (Also, I think it would be immensely hilarious for Rhys and Gwen to say NO ALIENS to a slightly younger Anwen, only for her to go off and befriend and then marry one.)  
> Thank you for reading and have a great day!


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